Oversized Damask Wall Mural

March 15, 2011

Okay, so I have been so excited about this project and wanting to post it for a long time, but hesitating to do so because it isn’t complete yet. But since you can see part of it in the pictures of another project I am going to introduce to you, I decided I might as well…

So here it is (well the beginnings anyway):

This is the entry wall to my home. This is a tone on tone damask mural I did. The ceilings are vaulted, so the plan is to stack another row on top of these ones, but I need to rent scaffolding.

So here’s how I did it. Oh… and I need to give credit to Twice Lovely for inspiring this project in a sense. I have seen large scale damask wallpapers that I have loved and they are a little pricey, but then I saw this project:

When I saw her cute dresser and how she did it with the help of an opaque projector, I thought this is exactly how I was going to do my oversized damask wall mural.

I found and bought my ancient 1950s opaque projector on ksl.com for $10! This was a steal… I am sure that it is an energy sucker and it’s very heavy and if I sprung for and bought the projector she suggests it would have been much easier and I wouldn’t need to rent scaffolding because it actually has an adjustable stand that lifts up the projector, but for $10 I couldn’t pass it up.

I happened to have a duvet set with the havana damask pattern she used for her dresser project. So I took a pillow sham to my local Fedex Kinkos and had them photo copy it onto an 8 1/2″x11″ paper. To make it stand out more when I projected I reinforced the edges with a permanent marker so I could really distinguish the pattern when it was projected onto the wall.

Here is what it looked like projected (there was actually more contrast, but the camera flash lightened it up a bit):

I tried pencil, I tried pen, I even tried a sharpie to no avail. Since my under coat was darker and fresh paint, none of those would stick. So I bought a paint pen. The first one I bought was gold, which worked and showed up well…

But I had to do a lot more touch up than I wanted so I switched to a brown paint pen a little closer to the wall color. Which worked perfect for me.

It was a little time consuming, but not as bad as I thought especially when I got it down.

I can’t even begin to tell you how much I love how this turned out… even if it isn’t complete in my mind yet. It is definitely a statement and everyone seems to love it. You’ll see more of this room to come, but what is also so fun about this room is the color palette: gray (which are the other three walls’ color), brown, green, and cream. I know it sounds very wierd, but it really is going to work.

I hope this inspires you and you enjoyed it as much as I do every day!